The Moment of Truth - How Diana Died, The Observer, 10/12/06

[Wokeman]

"The Moment of Truth
Since her death in 1997, the princess has been at the
centre of a maelstrom of conspiracy theories — many of
them stretching the far limits of credibility. On the
eve of Lord Stevens's report on the Paris crash, is it
time to lay her ghost to rest?
by Mark Townsend, David Smith and Peter Allen in
Paris.

LORD STEVENS of Kirkwhelpington could be forgiven a
touch of stage fright this Thursday morning. Before
the gaze of the world's media, the former commissioner
of the Metropolitan Police will finally explain how
the world's most famous woman died. At a central
London location — still a closely guarded secret, such
is the sensitivity over the Scotland Yard inquiry —
Stevens will reveal the circumstances surrounding that
night in Paris on 31 August, 1997.
For three years his investigation has waded through
the rich soup of conspiracy only to announce what many
thought they already knew: Diana, Princess of Wales,
died in a crash in a car being driven at 100mph by a
drunk man pursued by paparazzi photographers. She was
not wearing a seatbelt.
The findings of one of the most complex — and
expensive — police investigations of modern times will
show that even the famous and supposedly blessed can
die without the influence of shadowy forces working in
mysterious ways.
Few facts have remained unchallenged since the
crash in the Pont de l'Alma underpass which killed
Diana and her 42-year old companion, Dodi Fayed, in a
Mercedes S280. Stevens's inquiry confirms that their
car was going too fast and that its driver had been
drinking heavily. Computer reconstructions reveal that
a grand prix driver would have been unable to hold his
line driving as Diana's driver Henri Paul did that
night.
One by one the conspiracies that have shrouded
Diana's death have been disected by Stevens's inquiry
and then discarded. In the world of conspiracy, the
more outlandish the theory, the more potent its
currency. The Queen was aware of it. Perhaps Prince
Philip. Maybe it was MI6, a macabre plot sanctioned by
the state.
Few deaths have triggered more rumours than that of
Diana, self-proclaimed Queen of Hearts. But Scotland
Yard's detectives could unearth no evidence that the
36-year old was killed unlawfully. And already it
seems that Stevens's conclusions may be too prosaic
for some to accept. The Harrods owner, Mohammed
al-Fayed, father of Dodi, remains convinced that Diana
and Dodi were murdered by British agents.
His hypothesis centres on the claim that for the
mother of the future King to bear a child of a Muslim
playboy would be intolerable to the royal family.
Fayed believes that Diana was pregnant and that the
couple were preparing to announce their engagement on
1 September 1997. He claims that British Intelligence,
at the behest of the royal family, killed them.
Last Friday, the Fayed camp were already
orchestrating their offensive, complaining that
Stevens had refused to share his conclusions with
them. The Harrods owner had received support, of a
kind, from across the world. On the internet the
theories concerning Diana's death are as multiple and
as varied as those attempting to explain the deaths of
John F Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. Most
lead everywhere and nowhere. Some claim that Diana is
still alive.
For many it hardly matters that the combined French
and British police investigations collated more than
6,000 pages of evidence and interviewed up to 1,500
witnesses before concluding that Diana's death was an
accident.
Stevens's team found no evidence that Diana was
pregnant. Nor did they unearth any proof to suggest
the Princess of Wales and Dodi were engaged.
Similarly, the involvement of MI6 has been dismissed,
along with the 'bright light' theory — the claim that
assassins deployed a high-voltage beam to blind Paul.
Stevens is expected to suggest that the Fayed family
selected the route through the narrow confines of the
Alma tunnel, in all likelihood because they wished to
outmanoeuvre the paparrazi camped outside the Ritz
Hotel where Diana and Dodi were staying.
Vivienne Parry, a close friend of Diana and former trustee of her memorial fund, believes that the Stevens inquiry will remind us that Diana was a mere mortal. "It's about a reluctance to accept that somebody of her celebrity could die a normal death," she said. "If you go to any coroner's court in Britain you will find plenty of examples where a wet road or a missed red light or a drunk driver has caused loss of life. But Diana was such a cultural icon and we live in an age of conspiracy theories where people want to believe that MI5 did it". She added: "As long as Diana continues to sell newspapers she will remain on the front pages. In 50 years' time there will be books and newspaper articles and TV programmes about her."
It is hardly a bold prediction. Diana's funeral was the grandest in modern history; the 'where were you' television event of an era. Kings and queens were there. Hollywood royalty paid their respects. Elton John sang 'Goodbye, England's Rose' to the tune of 'Candle in the Wind.' Little else was talked about for weeks following the crash. Nine years on, the circus surrounding her will have another week in the limelight.
Fayed and Stevens have come to know each other quite well these past two years. Their relationship began in April 2004 when the Royal Coroner, Michael Burgess, ordered Scotland Yard to examine the conspiracy theories swirling around the deaths of Diana and Dodi. Fourteen officers were corralled under the aegis of Stevens and Operation Paget was born.
Relations, however, between Stevens's men and Fayed's own investigation team — were fraught. Nor were the tensions solely connected to Fayed's camp. Those working on the inquiry have admitted that Anglo-French relations were, for the most part, strained.
'This whole inquiry was deeply political,' said one Paget officer. 'Half the time was spent trying to keep Fayed happy, the other half trying to keep the French happy. It was often an impossible task.'
Claims have surfaced that few of the British police officers involved spoke enough French and even fewer French officers spoke English. Inquiries by The Observer also reveal that vital evidence was suppressed by the French; not necessarily as part of a cover-up, but in order to avoid unearthing sensitive information that could embarrass Britain's royals.
France's premier police force, the Criminal Brigade, concluded in 2002 that Diana's death was an accident. Paul was blamed; a drunk driver driving recklessly. Despite the cross-Channel friction, British police have, in essence, now corroborated their findings. The cost of the inquiry was £2m.
One of the thorniest issues concerned the confusion over the identity of Paul's blood sample and Fayed's claims it had been swapped to frame the driver. Stevens, however, will reveal that DNA evidence extracted from Paul's parents was recently used to prove he was three times over the French drink drive limit. Ten days ago, Stevens met Paul's parents at the British embassy in Paris to inform them that their son was drunk when he swept into the Alma tunnel at almost 100mph.
Stevens also interviewed Prince Charles and Diana's ex-butler, Paul Burrell about a note said to have been written by the princess 10 months before she died. It read: 'My husband is planning "an accident" in my car, brake failures and serious head injury to make the path clear for him to marry.' Prescient it may have been, in part, anway, but detectives ultimately dismissed the note. Stevens also conducted interviews with John Scarlett, the head of MI6, and Elizabeth Manningham-Buller, the MI5 director-general. British Intelligence, Stevens is convinced, played no part in the crash.
Officers will admit that they have not managed to track down the mysterious white Fiat whose paint was found smeared against the side of the mangled Mercedes. More than 5,000 vehicles were examined without success, although its involvement is not considered to have a larger role in the accident by the Paget team.
Similarly, it is unlikely we will ever know who Diana was talking to on her mobile phone at the moment the Mercedes ploughed into the Alma's walls, but Stevens is satisfied her final conversation held no sinister undertones.
Within hours of her death, it became clear that Diana's driver that night was no regular guy. Contradictory and idiosyncratic, Paul's lifestyle fuelled the conspiracy theories. Everything about the man — his psychological state, his personal life and his professional history — was pored over by the Paget team. On the surface they found a clean-living, sociable Frenchman. Yet, there was apparently another Paul, a heavy-drinking womaniser and an apparent loner who revelled in some of Paris's seedier haunts.
The contradictions continued. Yet his autopsy betrayed none of the liver damage associated with heavy drinking. Documents obtained from the French investigation, seen by The Observer reveal that Paul had just begun a relationship with a 25-year-old Moroccan student. She told police that Paul hardly drank, yet officers found a cellar crammed with alcohol at his flat close to the Ritz. French detectives were also surprised to gay contact magazines in his Ritz desk.
Tittle-tattle perhaps, but the truth appears to be that Paul was a player. Stevens will confirm this week that Paul was in the pay of the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance, the French equivalent of MI5. Secret accounts containing more than £100,000 in 14 banks were found across France. On the night that he died Paul was found with £2,000 in cash on him. Evidence suggests he may have met his 'handler', a senior official in the security services, that evening. The suspicion remains that Paul may have been rewarded for any tips concerning Diana's movements.
British detectives spent months trying to piece together his final hours, but glaring gaps in their timeline are understood to remain. Somehow he built up at least 173 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, the equivalent of eight glasses of wine. Paul came off duty at the Ritz at 7pm. At 10pm he was summoned back to drive Diana and Dodi to his apartment near the Champs Elysees.
Diana, in life an international superstar, remains an object of media fascination in death. She is still the subject of TV dramas and documentaries (another is shown tonight), films, operas, books and websites, many devoted to the circumstances of her death.
There are more than 2,500 Diana-related items on eBay, the international auction site. At least 2,000 national newspaper articles have mentioned her each year since her death. This week she is guaranteed a return to the front pages.
But there is a counter-narrative which holds that the media has misjudged the public's appetite. Althorp Park Events, which administers the ancestral home in Northamptonshire where Diana is bured, has suffered dwindling ticket sales and net losses of nearly £700,000 in the past five years. The first Diana dress to be auctioned sold earlier this year at Sotheby's for £15,000, half its estimated price. Recently revealed documents found that nearly half the population felt alienated by the BBC's blanket coverage of the princess's death and funeral. They thought it was excessive and over-emotional.
Among the sceptics is Peter Morgan, who scripted the recent hit film, The Queen about the extraordinary events of that week but who has little interest in the princess herself. 'History has revised Diana downwards,' he said. 'We think of her less as an icon and martyr and more as a sad and troubled woman,'
Those who knew the princess insist that the ongoing affection for her is genuine. Patrick Jephson, her former private secretary, said: 'She fills a gap still in national life, just as she did when she was alive. It is neither intelligent or polite to describe the reaction to her death as "hysteria". If you dismiss national feelings expressed on such a scale then you're failing to draw any lessons from that experience.'
Anthony Holden, Diana's friend and biographer, concurs that the 'Diana effect' should not be underestimated. 'She still sells newspapers and magazines because there is a huge number of people I call "Diana's army" who will never forgive Charles for the way he treated her, will never forgive Camilla and will always cherish a woman who made the monarchy human,' he said.
Even so, Phil Hall, who was editor of the News of the World during the Diana years, feels that when Stevens reports, the public may finally want an end to the speculation. 'She was the biggest seller of tabloid papers who ever lived,' he said. 'But the reaction I get when I talk to people now is let's move on: they want William and Harry to be left alone. People say they want to stick with the happy memories of her, they don't want to pore over the details of the accident.'
Yet Diana's hold still exists. In 2002 the BBC organised a public poll to find the greatest Britons of all time. Diana finished third, behind Winston Churchill and Isambad Kingdom Brunell. Among those trailing in her wake were Charles Darwin, William Shakespeare and Issac Newton.
The conspiracies will not stop with the publication of the report. In one month, Fayed will look to the inquest into Diana's death to reiterate its lurid allegations and it remains a certainty that he will exploit every opportunity to pursue his vendetta against the House of Windsor. Yet, ultimately, nothing he says can change the facts of a tragic traffic accident and its attendant lesson in the perils of drink driving. And the lasting message of Diana's death is perhaps even more prosaic: a high-profile safety warning to back-seat car passengers. After all, if the PrIncess of Wales and her lover had been wearing seatbelts, both would quite possibly still be alive."
(The Observer, London, Sunday, December 10th December 2007)

[Wokeman]

This story has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese,

[prole art threat]

[Keith Mothersson]

http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=5774

(also worth looking at the preceding page of that for how the 'Conspiracy' discourse is being renovated. )

There are some important Diana URLs on this page (entitled Madrid on 7/7 section)
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=1121&sid=9de23296ddf c0a512458e4e8603a77b8

including Sue Reid's explosive allegations from the Daily Mail in June putting Sir Robert Fellowes (Queens secretary and Di's brother in law) at the ops room of the Paris embassy that night, and not in Norfolk at all - it was known he wasn't at Balmoral), also suggesting something unusual about Blair's pilots/plane being kept on standby all that weekend.

Incidentally, there was a not bad article by Mary Dejewsky in the Independent on Tuesday, entitled: 'I am with the conspiracy theorists on Diana's death', which however included ritual distancing from the other conpiracies (Oklahoma, 911, Kelly), so I sent this to the Indie, attempting an entertaining angle which might sneak under the radar:

Dear Editor,
Mary Dejevsky should be ashamed of herself(Comment, 12 December). Everyone knows that ambulances with critically ill crash victims should travel at 7 miles an hour, just as we can all have perfect confidence that British and US security services exist to protect us all, as they did in nipping that dreadful man Saddam's WMD in the bud.

Since only tragic accidents and innocent c***-ups occur, one can only assume the normally sensible Ms Dejevsky is the victim of 'the conspiracist mindset', a currently fashionable internet virus spread by uneducated types confused by a fast changing world they can't make sense of, who can't handle uncertainty and feel the need to achieve instant 'closure' around paranoid tales of shadowy 'evil doers'.

I am surprised that the Independent published such a disgraceful piece. Whatever next I wonder? - comment articles by David Ray Griffin's followers pointing to (obviously faked) BBC and CBS video footage purporting to show that the Twin Towers came down at virtually freefall speed - when any child knows that stuff takes much longer to fall through stuff than through air?

Poor Diana must be spinning in her grave!

Keith Mothersson
2b Darnhall Cres,
Perth
PH2 0HH

07815 653389
01738 783677

Maybe it would be good for one of these threads to be the main DIANA one, I suggest the other one (which I mention at the top of this post).

It is certainly a great opportunity for us to link to the huge Diana tribe or mostly women! Come all you internet bachelors out there, don't be shy, get talking to them!